It was around late January that the dreams began. They were subtle at first, scarcely to be distinguished from the usual procession of surreal nocturnal images and sensations, but soon there was no denying a definite set of themes and feelings running through Ursula’s mind almost every night. Sometimes they were so vague as to be nothing more than a feeling of undefined dread, yet even on these occasions Ursula somehow knew, upon waking in a sweat, that they were intimately connected with her pregnancy. Perhaps all new mothers had dream-feelings like this, she told herself, unconvinced. On other occasions she dreamt she was playing with two young children of the same age. Initially these dreams tended to feel very normal – mundane, in fact, for a pregnant woman, she guessed – but as the dream progressed, doubt began to creep in. Both children appeared to have normal human bodies, but they were sat facing away from her, and she felt a sudden desire to see their faces. She’d reach forward and attempt to grasp their young bodies, but her hands would somehow fail to gain purchase – perhaps either the children or her hands were covered in some slick invisible lubricant, or maybe her hands were simply passing straight through their bodies, as if they were no more substantial than gas. Getting more and more panicked, Ursula would lunge at the children with all her might and cry out to them without knowing their names. Eventually one child would turn around, and with a great sigh of relief Ursula would realise the child’s face was as normal as its body; sometimes a girl, sometimes a boy, sometimes with blonde hair like its father and sometimes with auburn locks like hers, but inevitably human – at least outwardly – and smiling sweetly at her with eyes like her own. Then with a sudden shock of cold horror Ursula would realise that the other child must be different. The other child would not have eyes like hers but would have eyes of ice-cold grey, like its father and grandfather. Why this should scare her so? What could be more natural than a child taking on the traits of either its father or its mother’s father? she’d ask herself in the dream. And then the other child would turn and as its face came into view Ursula would scream and scream until she woke up.